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The Onryō/Sadako - What I think are her design flaws & why
Hello!
As I'm sure most people would agree, Sadako's current kit is a bit on the weaker side and while I don't consider her to be unplayable or weak to the point of never being able to win, I certainly think her kit needs some polishing, her addons need tweaking and ultimately she needs some good quality of life changes to make her a better killer to play as.
Obviously it goes without saying but this is just my opinion and I welcome any and all opinions on the matter!
Mainly using this thread to discuss what I think are her biggest flaws from a design perspective. I'll also include a TL;DR as point #5 for those who don't have the time to read all my ramblings :]
#1 Her power has no impact on a chase, directly or otherwise:
The most important point overall.
Every other killer on the roster has a power that in some form or another directly or indirectly influences the chase part of playing Killer. Even those who are considered to be the weakest killers in the game. I'll list a few examples to back up my point:
Trapper: Bear-traps work as area denial and can instantly end chases or make them easier by preventing a survivor from running a strong tile.
Ghostface: Being able to mark somebody and instantly down them has the potential to turn a chase that would've lasted a long time into a super quick one. Has offensive and defensive applications.
Legion: Even prior to his buff, his power served the purpose of keeping survivors injured and making healing detrimental which by proxy would make chases shorter. His power has an added pinch of lethality to it now which isn't super reliable but it's still something.
Even if outside of their powers they are stuck as weak m1 man - their power has the potential to do something. What does Sadako have right now that influences chase?
1) She has the possibility of getting a free hit due to stealth (Something that drops off as survivors get better; unreliable)
2) She has her manifestation flickering, which the player has no real control over and I would argue on a basekit level it does very little in the majority of chases and it's certainly not a mechanic that I think has an tangible impact. Especially not in the strongest tiles in the game, I've only ever see it come into play in junk/filler loops and that's about it.
3) She can demanifest to phase through bodyblocking survivors, which is nice if a little inconvenient
#2 Her Mobility Is Too Punishing compared to Stronger Killers:
Let's talk about the mobility killers, more specifically the killers who I'm going to dub 'restricted mobility' killers. They are only able to traverse to objects in the environment and don't have free control of their movement.
Freddy, Demogorgon, Hag, Pinhead & Sadako
All of these killers have a form of map mobility that is limited or restricted in some form. Freddy can only teleport to generators, Demogorgon has to set up portals, Hag has to place traps and someone has to solve the box.
Freddy is the biggest comparison I'd like to make in this section: His teleport cooldown is 45 seconds (Even shorter with sleeping survivors and/or addons) and it teleports you to straight to a generator. It can even be cancelled which opens up mindgame potential.
Meanwhile, Sadako's teleport can't be cancelled and when used, that specific teleport point (The TV) has a whopping 100 second cooldown just for using it. Why?
I can't fathom why using what should be a cornerstone of your kit is punished so heavily
To make matters worse, if a Survivor decides to interact with the TV (We'll get to that) - the cooldown is only 60 seconds. I understand you don't want survivors being able to rob the killer of a crucial part of their kit for extended periods of time but why is it more punishing to use your power than to have it be denied by survivors?
This segways perfectly into my next point.
#3 Her mobility is such a non-threat, there's no reason to use the built in counters to it:
So when BHVR were designing Sadako, I imagine they looked at the mobility and went
"It's pretty good, so we should implement a mechanic that allows survivors to disable it partially for a time."
On paper this makes sense - right? Hag and Demo have similar mechanics to mess with their mobility.
What's the key difference though? I refer to my previous point - It is more punishing for the Killer to teleport to a TV close to you than it is for you to disable it outright.
Picking up a tape is further deincentivised by giving them stacks of condemned for doing it meaning the whole tape mechanic will go largely ignored throughout most Sadako games and that's just sad. (No pun intended)
From my experience, the only time messing with tapes was a good idea was during the endgame when there was VCRs near exit gates. That's it.
Now don't take me wrong, with the right perks teleporting to generators is insanely good and gives you the ability to use a lot of slowdown perks very well, just like Freddy. This is the biggest thing her mobility is good for aside from getting from a hook to another chase quicker or vice versa.
It has merits to it 100% and I'm very grateful we have it in its current form despite my previous criticisms. I'd rather have it as it is now instead of not at all.
#4 Condemnation - Just for thematics? Or was there an intended design purpose?:
Finally, condemnaiton as a mechanic. 7 Days. 7 Notches. I have to give it to BHVR it was a clever way of incorporating this aspect of the film into the game, it's def not how I would've considered an implementation of the curse into game form. I would've imagined it tying into generators somehow (there's 7 gens y'know?)
Anyway the main problem is, outside of the thematics - what is the mechanic actually for?
Is it to keep survivors busy with side objectives Ala Pinhead, Pig? Nope, they have no reason to touch the tapes most of the time. Being fully condemned is so unthreatening that even if you somehow make it to 7 stacks - the killer hit cooldown is longer than the insert VHS action. Just a cruel joke at that point.
Is it to reward the killer for using their power well? Nope, outside of certain addon combos you could play perfect with Sadako and never see this mechanic do anything for you.
Only explanation I can come up with is it was designed weak on purpose. Not because BHVR hates killers (lol) but rather because the ability to mori a survivor without ever being hooked is downright unfair, you need only look at old old moris and tombstone piece for proof of that. Tape carriers having a built in 'anti-tunnel' mechanic further reinforces this idea.
Also just throwing this in as a random idea: Give Sadako a stacking buff that increases the more survivors become condemned. I don't know what, maybe give her manifestation a speed boost or something like that. A small tweak like that would go a long way in making condemnation an actual threat worth dealing with.
#5 a TL;DR for those who want one:
1) Her power has basically no impact in chase direct or indirect which is unlike everyone else in the roster. Biggest design flaw in my opinion.
2) Her mobility cooldown is too punishing compared to other killers. 100 seconds per teleport is too harsh compared to someone like Freddy.
3) Her mobility is such a non-threat that the tape mechanic is barely used in most of her games. It's more effective to let her teleport than it is to mess with tapes. Survivors are punished for messing with tapes as well.
4) Condemnation feels like it serves no purpose. It's not a side objective nor a reward for playing well. What is it? It's weak on purpose because killing a survivor off with no hooks isn't fair. Give Sadako a small buff when chasing condemned survivors. Could be anything.
Closing Thoughts:
Thanks for taking the time to read! Sadako's been a killer who I've grown to enjoy and played a bunch since she came out and I wanted to write down my thoughts on her design in detail!
Like I said in the start, if you agree/disagree feel more than free to let me know!
Comments
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- Agree. Even Legion has a way to get people injured which is something even if he can’t (usually) down with it. Sneaking up on survivors is unreliable beyond low levels of play and wraith is way better at it anyways since he doesn’t have a lullaby. Personally I think they could help her out a bit here by reducing her lullaby radius (again) so survivors don’t have as much time to react, and making bloody fingernails basekit (increases speed boost duration when exiting a TV). They could also increase her flicker duration after manifesting. This still isn’t a real chase power but idk what else they would realistically give her here.
- I think the TV projecting cooldown is way too long. I don’t think it makes much sense that it’s longer when you use it vs. when a survivor interacts with it.
- Which leads us to the fact that survivors often don’t bother with tapes anyway because they simply don’t need to. As survivor I either do at most 1 tape per match, or none at all (usually the latter). If she uses a TV even once then it’s gone for so long that it’s not worth taking tapes and running across the map with them just to deny a single teleport that goes on cooldown for as long as it does (unless she has that iridescent addon). I’d kinda like to experiment with swapping the cooldowns (eg. 60 seconds if teleported to, and 100 if a survivor turns it off). If those are too long still then they can always be reduced further.
- And this ties in to #3 as well, not only is it not really worth the survivors’ time to do tapes to deny her teleport, they don’t need to either because condemned isn’t threatening. Now, I don’t really blame the devs for playing it safe here. They have to be careful with a mechanic that allows a mori. That said, I think it’s been long enough now that it clearly isn’t that threatening and I think there’s a few things that can be done to improve it; ideas that come to mind are increasing the range around a TV that inflicts condemned, allowing it to build up passively (but slowly) over time while not carrying a tape, and more. I also like your idea of buffing the killer in some way the more stacks of condemned survivors have. I also think survivors who are fully condemned should be Exposed so you can’t try to insert your tape during the killer’s hit cooldown and it also makes it more threatening for survivors who are already on death hook anyway (eg. “If I go down I die regardless, so what’s the point other than the killer instinct reveal”).
But yeah those are just some of my thoughts, glad to see we mostly seem to be on the same page as to why she’s underwhelming overall.
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Pretty much this sums everything up.
The only thing I'll add is an potential idea: No hit cooldown or tremendously reduced hit cooldown when Sadako hits a fully Condemned survivor, as they are "condemned".
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Glad to hear you share a similar mindset! I agree with everything you've put here
Either exposed or making the insert tape action a bit longer (like 3 seconds or something)
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Very well constructed. I hope the team is taking notes and makes some changes!
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Unlikely since they almost never check the forums (for good reason).
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Honestly I'd just decrease the TV recharge time to 50 seconds (regardless of why it was turned off) and make the Ring Drawing add-on base kit.
Since her power isn't oriented to ending chases quickly, she needs more game delay. Forcing survivors to deal with tapes could be that game delay... except that giving survivors a threatening level of condemned stacks takes way too long. So, we lower the cooldown on TVs (which also improves her mobility), give an alternate base kit way to give survivors condemned stacks, and then reassess.
I think that's pretty fair. That way, like Pig, being condemned isn't really about getting a kill through that method, it's more so about slowing down the game for a killer that needs it.
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